Brandon Knight

So ya know, sometimes it’s good to be late to the party. Ya get to seem like you had a lot of more important shizz to do, if it’s lame it won’t matter as much if you dipset early… If only that principle worked in fantasy analysis!

After a fantastic weekend, the buzz to go and grab Terrence Jones was like a hot party right in its peak. “New York’s hottest new club is JELLY BONES! Located on the Lower Upper Side, this random home invasion is the creation of legally drunk clothing designer Nick Nolte and Gabana. As you walk in, you’ll be handed a glass of champagne – or is it piss?” With the Rockets hesitancy to stretch him out, adding Josh Smith back in the day, and the return of Dwight Howard at some point, I was like, “F that shizz, sounds like a lame sausage party!” But Houston put TJones in the starting line-up last night, and he went straight Nolte for 15/15/0/1/2 making 6-9 FG. He’s kinda looked like what the optimistic Kenneth Faried backers were hoping for! Plus he can hit threes! Now a must-own in all leagues, and I certainly would be dropping Manimal for him. That said, when Dwight is back, it might not be as rockin’ as JELLY BONES at midnight. It could be another month before Dwight is out there though, so TJones my Jelly Bones! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy NBA action:

Geez, open the triage, we might not have any beds open in our Fantasy Basketball Infirmary after this weekend! Way to sully the excitement of players debuting on new teams…

I guess an injury that made a lot of people surly is a year with no more Sully. Stress reactions have been claiming lots of games lately, and Jared Sullinger will be shut down for the year with lingering issues in his foot. I blame Brad Stevens! Gives me stress reactions…

The Celtics have been anything but consistent with rotations, but Kelly Olynyk should be primed for a little consistency whence he’s back from his kankle. Right now it’s Tyler Zeller manning the 5 with Brandon Bass at the 4, and those three should split most of the big man minutes. Zeller’s nice %s with the big man stats can be usable on a lot of teams and Bass, who went 15/5/1/0/2 on 7-11 FG in 40 minutes last night always seems to be underrated. Olynyk of Nazareth is the guy to own, but he’s not miles ahead of the other two. I wouldn’t mind a spec add for any of the bunch, but not dropping anyone of too much value. Here’s what else went down over an injury-plagued weekend of fantasy basketball action:

The all-star break has come and gone. For DFS purposes it seemed like an eternity. For me it was a nice break to step away and recharge batteries. Thursday was the NBA trade deadline and we seen a ton of movement. 39 players were traded. Now I’m not going to sit here and tell you who the winners and losers were cause I could care less. I will tell you it opens up opportunity for a lot of players for DFS and also takes the value away from a few players. When you are building your lineups make sure these players that were involved in a trade are playing for their new teams. This process can take a few days because of the amount of trades at one time and the players have to pass physicals. On Saturday we a small 5-game slate so let’s get on with it:

[We’ve got the Trade Deadline Podcast up! Slim and I react to all this hooblah as this post continues to be updated – you can find the Pod the post below this one as well as that link.]

Razzball Nation!

The Trade Deadline is nigh, which is to say, soon. Can I trade the start of this open with a different one…? “Did you hear the one about how the Hawks got nothing for the broke ass of Josh Smith last trade deadline?!” Imagine the Hawks with a lottery pick as well… I guess as fortune-tellers, they knew they didn’t need anything for Smoove!

The 2015 NBA Trade Deadline will pass at 3:00 PM EST, and up until the closing moments, I’ll be updating this post as each trade moves across my virtual news desk. Fantasy spins galore! That’s the younger sister of Pussy Galore… So be sure to constantly ping that refresh like Goldfinger on Kitco! Here’s what’s gone down so far:

Oh man, not a fun night for Mark Cuban unless he’s also invested in the Dallas area sports medicine clinics. The way the NBA has gone this year, it’d be a smart investment!

First into the Shark Tank was Tyson Chandler, who sprained his ankle a minute and half in and couldn’t return. He had an earlier ankle sprain and it didn’t cost him any time, so even though it looked bad, ol’ Tyson is no Chicken. Then a mere couple minutes later, Monta Ellis hurt his hip and only played 3 and a half minutes. As Kevin tells us in The Office – “That’s Dallas!” Man, good thing the All-Star Break is right around the corner! Even if both guys say they’re 100%, I see no reason why the Mavs would push em for their game tomorrow night hosting the Jazz. While they’re out, we’re a bunch of preying sharks circling the bloody waters like Mr. Wonderful and Herjavec! And last night it was the hairless ghost (wait, ghosts usually don’t have hair right?) of Charlie Villanueva who piled up some junky stats hitting 9-13 from the field for 26/5/1 with 5 treys. Was awful other than points and treys with 3-6 FT and 4 TO. Big man ThrAGNOF! But for me, the big winner for tomorrow night is Mark Cuban’s own (seriously, kinda seems like he’s his dad – Shawn Marion comp?) Al-Farouq Aminu. Only 19 minutes last night, but hit all the cats for 5/6/1/1/1. Mark Cuban Jr. is only owned in 10% of Yahoo leagues, and in a shortened week where every steal and block will count, he should be one of your first calls on the wire in what should be a spot-start. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

With the football season over we can now fully concentrate on the NBA. Last weekend the article did awesome. I had my best day of the year and if you followed the write up I am sure you did well too. We have a 7 game slate on tap for tonight. I want you to take note that I am not going to write up any of the starting Golden St. players. It’s not that they aren’t good plays. Golden St. is in the middle of a tough schedule. They are playing their 6th game in 8 days, the third set of a series of b2b’s. After playing a tough game in Atlanta last night, a game against the Knicks gives Steve Kerr a opportunity to limit the minutes or rest some of the starters.

From the depth of 90s video games, crossed with the beastly rancor of Joakim Noah (can you use rancor as an adjective? is that even the right part of speech?!), it’s the Goromotaro! An epic performance of 20/20 needed a name, but ever since Joakim pulled off a few back in the day, he hasn’t scored 20 points in like… a million years. Hasn’t yet this year! Shocking he’s scored double digits in only 2 of the past 19… But I digress…

The way things have looked the past month, Goromotaro might need a name or image change to feature Hassan Whiteside! Dude is hitting the glass harder than Cheech at a bong-only party. 24/20/0/3/2 last night for his first career Goro. Not that he hasn’t been close! Had a 23/16 and a 16/24 in there. Unreal! There’s only been 23 20+ board games this year, and Whiteside is two of them and has only 8 starts! Whiteside has the 7th Goro this year (the others belonging to Kenneth Faried, Zach Randolph, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, Pau Gasol and… you ready for this…? Jason Thompson!), and as good as those guys are (well, minus Thompson), I’d put good money on Whiteside being the first with multiple. He’s also 73% from the stripe his past 13 games! Getting a little unreal out there, and the 4 TO last night were very fluky – especially one on an inbounding violation that was totally Norris Cole‘s fault. Cole tried handing it back to Whiteside after he tossed it in during an odd, weird lack of awareness that cost the Heat the game! I’m pretty sure it was a play ran to perfection from the Larry Drew playbook… Here’s what else went down last night across the NBA:

Man, who woulda thought the Bucks without Brandon Knight (sat with minor injuries) would’ve been able to beat the Raptors last night?! I figured that big Jurassic Park reboot trailer during the Super Bowl would have pumped the Raps up! Well, I guess Canadians don’t really watch the Super Bowl, so their loss!

And while the 82-75 win was a defensive grinder, it didn’t slow down that impressive O from The Duchess K Middleton! 25/9/1/3/0 for Khris Middleton, hitting 10-17 FG (3-4 3PTM 2-2 FT) and only 1 TO. All that with Jorge Gutierrez as the fill-in starting PG! It didn’t matter though, since they had a JB waiting in the wings as well… But more there later. With 25 Pts last night, K-Midd is 17+ points in 4 of 5 and 3+ treys in 4 of 5. And multi-steals in 4 of 5 for good measure as well! Even though a lot of the counting stats are lower than the breakout last year, so are the minutes and the %s are much better. But my favorite leap is 1.0 steals in 30 minutes last year to a whopping 1.5 in only 26 this year. The Duchess is secretly a world-class thief! I think Keira Knightley could star in that movie. Larry Drew could be the evil drug lord! Maybe Ersan Ilyasova can be a Turkish arms dealer. The script is writing itself! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Well, yet another example of why a starting nod doesn’t equate to production, even for seemingly good players…

The Bulls got embarrassed last night in LA, with Nikola Mirotic getting the start at SF. It was disastrous before, and twas disastrous again! Only got 12 minutes and did nothing other than get a steal and a turnover, and it looks like old Tibs wasn’t too happy. The ghost of Carlos Boozer shoved Mirotic around on a layup and he just isn’t a good defender – why we saw another healthy dose of Tony Snell. Even in a 2OT game, Tibs didn’t let Mirotic off the bench! Went small instead with Kirk Hinrich and Aaron Brooks picking up more PT late and in the OTs. And ultimate insult to injury – the Bulls still lost. But it was really Derrick Rose‘s fault as he continues to lay brickhouses on top of batches and batches of turnovers. He’s like a Martha Stewart version of The Big Bad Wolf! And the Bulls should’ve pulled this one out since the Lakers continually refuse to play their best player… Tarik Black! Outrageous! Egregious! Opprobrious! (thank you Thesaurus) Black is an MVP waiting to happen… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

I know, I know. Much bigger headlines on the injury front, but it’s Injury Friday with Pete’s Fantasy Basketball Infirmary coming out in a few hours, so I’m not gonna steal his spotlight!

With LaMarcus Aldridge out 6-8 weeks with a hitchhiking injury, on top of Robin Lopez still a few weeks out, there’s a ton of PF/C minutes to fill your Blazing hole. After Dorell Wright had a very solid 15/3/5/2/0 line with three treys on Wednesday, it kinda felt like Wright could’ve run away with the gig. But Stotts was like “I want someone else with Ciroc!” and put Thomas Robinson in the PF spot for 28 minutes last night. Almost rainbowed too! I’ve always thought T-Rob could turn into something, and 9/12/1/2/2 was mighty solid. Can’t hit a FT, but who can these days?! By tomorrow night, Stotts could pound a few more Jamesons and be like “F it, we’ve lost two in a row, it’s Meyers Leonard time!” All that said, Nicolas Batum also hopped into the Fantasy Basketball Infirmary leaving early with a wrist injury, so maybe Wright will HAVE to play some starting F. Stotts will take another 5-6 shots of, I dunno, something so low shelf it’s ridiculous – let’s go Popov – to get over last night’s crushing loss and start Steve Blake at PF tomorrow night. At pressers tomorrow he’s going to be lit like Drunk Uncle! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action: